We'd been in the Amazon rain forest for a couple days. We pretty much knew the score. Hammocks, howler monkeys, poisonous everything, fresh water dolphins... trees that can walk... yeah, we got this. But then one morning, on a pre-breakfast canoe trip, something happened. Something of such mystifying importance occured and I'm still struggling to comprehend its meaning.
The day started as most mornings. We woke up in our thatch-roofed lodge-on-stilts. It's located somewhere deep in the Cuyabeno National Reserve in the badlands along the Ecuador/Colombia border. We grabbed some coffee with the 8 others in our group, put on our ponchos, and hopped into the motorized canoe. We cruised up some tributaries of tributaries of tributaries of the Amazon River and took in the sights and sounds of the jungle waking up.
As we rounded one bend in particular, our guide started. He jumped to his feet was pointing at the jungle. He looked back at us with such a child-like wonder I thought his only logical next move was to scream "cannonball" and jump in the water. But no, he girlishly screamed to the driver to turn the boat around and hold the position. While the boat maneuvered, he continued his open-mouthed grinning and pointing while looking back and forth between us and the jungle.
We followed suit, squinting to see what he was looking at. The excitement was mounting. On the edges of our seats we peered into the impermeable jungle. We looked back at our guide. He was on his knees, rocking back and forth mumbling something. He appeared to be crying. We let him be for a few minutes and soon he began to compose himself.
Breathing heavily, he stood, wiped his eyes, pointed to the horizon and with an air of triumph declared, "two-toed sloth." The boat nearly tipped as we lunged to the edge to get a better look. "See there," said our guide, "the tallest tree, furthest away? There's a fork in it and on the right fork there's a bushy branch, see it? There on that branch, you see that black dot? That's the sloth. See it?" Oh yes, see it we did.
It was as though the dot was accelerating towards me. It rapidy grew and expanded in my minds-eye. The moment before it became all encompassing blackness, it kicked me square in the soul and I had to sit. My head hurt. My chest hurt.
As if we needed further convincing of our fortune, the guide was raving about how rare this was and how lucky we all were, himself included. He continued to gesticulate and spew crazy-talk about the infrequency of "dot-, err sloth-sightings." "Shut up, man! You'll get a tip!" Did I say that out loud? Things were getting hazy. I could barely breathe. Nothing was clear to to me... except... wait... yes, the black dot. It was remarkably clear. In fact, it had morphed into the only point of visibility on an otherwise dark and meaningless world.
Transfixed on the dot I had ceased to breathe entirely. I began to swoon and just before passing out, I looked to Tara and heard her say, "That black dot is the period on the sentence of my life."
I woke some time later to find the boat in a state of panic. Tara was gone and several others were in the water. The guide, seemingly unable to free himself from his shtick was lying on his side and speaking rapidly in French. Scared and confused I demanded answers. The driver, obviously some sort of nihilist, was sitting at his post, looking bored. I grabbed him by his fat head and began screaming in his face. He calmly pulled out his camera. He had managed to take a picture of Tara, mid-transformation, just prior to her grabbing a tree branch and climbing slowly and accurately into the canopy.
We left Bolivia a little depressed. We were unsure why exactly we were leaving. Our sense of purpose seemed to be gone. So comfortable we'd become in our volunteer guesthouse with a routine, friends, and Christian companionship that we'd forgotten a bit how to proceed. For a month we had put on hold our "desire for discovery" and it was taking some effort to jump-start it again. On top of that, Bolivia's rough-and-tumble way of life had a nagging effect on our spirits. Granted, we lived very comfortably in Bolivia, but our recognition of the shameful social failures and the dog-eat-dog mentality of the culture made for difficult social interactions and had somewhat taken the wind out of our sails. So, a little blue, we headed to Peru.
We'd sensed an uplifting change even on the bus to Peru, but were hesitant to accept it. We saw fewer trash fires, fewer stray dogs, and had bus seats "con extreme confort." We arrived in Arequipa, Peru at night and feeling indifferent, we willfully allowed our taxi driver to take us to his highest commission-paying hostel. It being run-down and attached to a raggaeton-playing discotheque we re-learned why we had always vehemently refused the taxi-driver-hustle. We vowed that tomorrow we'd spur our inner-travellers into action and fell asleep to the "duh-CHIduh-CHI-duh-CHIduh-CHI."
In the morning, we found a much better hostel around the corner, and began walking around. You could almost taste the sea-air in this foot-hills-of-the-Andes town. Surrounded by stunning peaks, manicured parks, and plazas. The people were dressed as though they (or someone close to them) had a decent job. They were not only having conversations but were smiling, laughing, exercising, driving cars, eating homemade cheese ice cream. By-standers would eagerly help us with directions, or pick up something we dropped and cheerfully hand it back to us. Granted, for the first few hours of this, we were on guard for the inevitable hustle. With leery glances we would accept directions. Were they leading us into a robbery? And why didn't that street vendor give us a look of genuine despair when we didn't buy his maracuyas?
It didn't take us long to realize that, yes, in fact, we were in a society that values continual improvement. A community of people who may even have a safety-net. Or perhaps a local juice factory to whom they can sell their overripe maracuyas. Soon, we found ourselves smiling, laughing, and sitting at ease in a public space. Soon, we were the ones eating homemade cheese ice cream.
From Arequipa we headed to Huacachina, Peru. An oasis-town in the middle of the world's largest sand dunes. After the requisite dune-buggy and sandboarding tour we headed to Lima and then back to the Andes to the town of Huaraz, Peru.
We'd been travelling ridiculously fast (42 hours of buses and 4 cities in 8 days - thank you night buses) so we ended up just lying around the hostel for three days acclimating and getting ready for a 4-day hike in the nearby Cordillera Blanca. With 22 peaks over 19,000ft, this 100-miles stretch around Huaraz is home to Peru's highest mountains.
Our hike started just outside of town. We were ahead of the busy tourist season by about a month and, as a result, for the entire hike we saw only three people (two local lenadors and one Californian mountaineer). Up through the valley, we hiked towards breathtaking glaciers, mountains, and altitude. We camped the first night in a grassy bowl facing the way we came. It rained the whole night, but the trusty REI 4-season kept us dry. We woke up to find the coming day's steep ascent mostly snow-dusted. As we climbed, the altitude started to take its toll. The trail was gone, but thankfully our hand-written instructions made the landmarks clear. We hiked above the tree-line, the glacier-fed alpine lakes, and seemingly above the weather system as it began snowing hard from below - the wind carrying the snow up the slope we were hiking. After another hour, it stopped snowing and we arrived at our camp spot.
Our elevation was now 15,400ft and we were completely surrounded by monstrous peaks that were shedding thunderous avalanches into their lakes below. The overwhelming beauty of this epic scene (and the lack of oxygen) floored us and we were perfectly happy lounging by the tent and gorging ourselves on ramen noodles, quinoa, and TVP. Throughout the night it snowed and "iced" every hour. How did we know that it was every hour? Well dear citizen, we knew because our oxygen-deprived brains would not abide slumber. We tossed around with headaches and nausea arose in the morning to a completely frozen tent.
After breaking though the frozen zippers we noticed the clouds had lifted and the avalanches had resumed. The renewed sense of awe (and bizarre exhaustion) resulted in a slow morning. Across a 3-mile scree field we could see the pass we were to take that day and though ti was only 1,000ft higher in elevation, we were in no mood to go for it. We headed down the way we came and were pleasantly surprised to pass though some pre-Incan ruins we managed to miss on the way up. The complex was HUGE, about a kilometer long. We are still unable to fathom how we'd not seen in on the way up. The trail literally goes through it.
After a couple more days of rest in Huaraz, we sold our tent (for more than we paid for it in The States!) to a local tourist-outfitter. Goodbye sweet prince, you will be missed.
We decided to hawk our sleeping pads as well and traveling lighter we headed to the beach-town Mancora, Peru. Tara had a day of surfing, as she is prone to do, and I spent the time just getting sun.
We're now in Ecuador, where it's lush, temperate, and the standard of living is yet more improved. We're happy to announce the return of ale to our diets! It's been since Patagonia and we feel blessed to be back in a place that appreciates the liberal use top-down fermentation, high-alpha hops, and generous amounts of barley malt. Oh, how far we've come in just a few weeks.
Breathing heavily, he stood, wiped his eyes, pointed to the horizon and with an air of triumph declared, "two-toed sloth." The boat nearly tipped as we lunged to the edge to get a better look. "See there," said our guide, "the tallest tree, furthest away? There's a fork in it and on the right fork there's a bushy branch, see it? There on that branch, you see that black dot? That's the sloth. See it?" Oh yes, see it we did.
I woke some time later to find the boat in a state of panic. Tara was gone and several others were in the water. The guide, seemingly unable to free himself from his shtick was lying on his side and speaking rapidly in French. Scared and confused I demanded answers. The driver, obviously some sort of nihilist, was sitting at his post, looking bored. I grabbed him by his fat head and began screaming in his face. He calmly pulled out his camera. He had managed to take a picture of Tara, mid-transformation, just prior to her grabbing a tree branch and climbing slowly and accurately into the canopy.
